Shred 451 Opening at Roosevelt Collection

If workout moguls Jillian Michaels, Tracy Anderson and, of course, Jane Fonda have taught us anything, it's that personal branding is just as important as better bods when it comes to building a fitness empire.

Shred415 co-founders Bonnie Micheli and Tracy Roemer seem to have both nailed.

They've taken high-intensity interval training, added hot playlists and hotter instructors and turned it all into a rapidly growing business. Waitlists stretch to as long as a month, as Chicagoans clamor to hand over $24 for a single class to sprint up treadmill hills and lift weights.

And they're growing:

But Mses. Micheli and Roemer aim to get really big first. A fourth Shred415 in Wicker Park will open next month, a fifth in the South Loop's Roosevelt Collection shortly thereafter, and their first studio outside Illinois, in suburban St. Louis, this summer. A seventh location is planned in the western suburbs for later this year; they foresee opening another four or five in metro Chicago eventually.

A variety of businesses seems like a good thing for Roosevelt Collection. It was mostly just shops in 2013, but this year appears to be restaurants, doctors and gyms. A good add.